As mobile phones began getting intelligent, folks realized they could possibly do a lot more than simply make phone calls. Today, there are plenty of people who use a cellphone to surf the Internet, communicate with people using messenger applications, hear music, look at movies, and enjoy video games. These features do not require high-end components any longer. Lenovo is aware that there is a massive marketplace for cost-effective multimedia smartphones, and has created the Lenovo A7000 for specifically this purpose.

The Lenovo A7000, with a large display, long-life battery and very strong processor, is said to be the best tablet under 15000 in the market today. This 5.5-inch phablet is very affordable and has one more appealing feature – it is the world’s very first cellphone to feature Dolby Atmos. However, it remains to be seen whether the A7000 can overcome the intense competition prevalent for devices in this price range.

No Major Change in Design

Best Tablet under 15000

The Lenovo A7000 looks pretty similar to its previous version Lenovo A6000. The cellphone has a simple design with rounded edges and a matte-finished rear. With a weight of 140g and just 8mm in thickness, the A7000 is most likely one of the most practical 5.5-inch screen smartphones on a budget.

Though the complete cellphone is built from plastic, it does not feel cheap while handling. Its pretty tough and in my opinion it ought to stand up to some amount of rough use. The top edge has an audio port (3.5mm) and the Micro-USB port. The right side of the phone contains the power button and the volume control built of metal. At the bottom is the microphone. Above the screen you will find the front-facing camera, the ambient light sensor and the ear-piece. Below the screen, there are a series of buttons but be warned, they do not have the back-lit functionality, which will make using them in the dark a real pain.

Going on to examine the rear part of the cellphone, we find the primary camera with its dual-LED flash located at the top left corner. Below the removable back cover are the usual paraphernalia – the battery, two Micro-SIM card slots and a slot for the micro SD card. The speaker grille is towards the right side of the rear and so does not block out sound when you are holding the phone. Nevertheless, the sound is fairly blocked when the phone is lying flat on its rear on a table or elsewhere.

Software Specs

The A7000 comes with an octa-core MediaTek MT6752m SoC at 1.5GHz and has integrated Mali-T760MP2 graphics. It has a good RAM of 2GB but surprisingly you get an internal storage of just 8 GB which is expandable up to 32 GB with a micro SD card. The tablet is packed with support for USB OTG which, you will be please to note, can also be used to charge other devices.

The cellphone operates Android 5.0 Lollipop with Lenovo’s Vibe UI 3.0 skin and does not use an app drawer. There are a good number of customisation choices and an independent theme app that makes the entire process simpler. The notification slider and multitasking cards are lifted from Lollipop but Lenovo A7000 has also added its own options to the default ones. Except for Shareit and Syncit apps, which are Lenovo’s own applications, you can uninstall most of the other innumerable apps that come preinstalled with the bundle.

The Lenovo has a 5.5-inch Asahi’s Dragontrail glass IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 720p – a pixel density of 267ppi. The display looks good and the brightness, contrast and viewing angles are not too bad either.

You can use one of the SIM cards to connect to 4G networks, even on a 2300MHz frequency which is prevalent here in India. Other connectivity options are Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. The battery capacity is 2,900mAh.

Dual Camera

The A7000 comes with an 8-megapixel camera with a dual-LED flash, and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. The camera in the A7000 is minimalistic and the 8-megapixel camera takes ordinary pictures at best. However, colours are natural and there is no pixellation even at full resolution. Don’t try to take low-light shots as the application removes a lot of detail. If you like taking selfies, you will be able to capture some really good ones. Capturing videos is a struggle even while keeping continuous focus.

Pretty Powerful Performance

The A7000 is fairly powerful and opening multiple apps on it does not create any problems. Even the Asphalt 8, which can be hard on the graphics, runs pretty smoothly without fits and starts. Though the Lenovo A7000 is also a great phone for gaming, the Dolby Atmos functionality is a bit of a letdown. It is basically an app that can be utilized to tweak its sound controlling in accordance with the content material that is being played – like music or movies. However, it seems to be more of a superior equaliser app that just lets you tamper with the sound frequency ranges to produce a feel of space. The quality of sound is actually good, but even at its optimum volume, the sound is not very loud, neither through the speakers nor the headset.

The A7000 can handle calls without having any call drops at all. The quality of sound also is rather good. The battery life is quite awesome, lasting just under 11 hours in a video loop test. If you can handle it reasonably, you should very easily be able use it for about one and a half days, which is great.

To Buy or Not To Buy – Is this the Best Tablet under 15000?

The Lenovo A7000 is the best tablet under 15000, cheaper than competing ones like Micromax’s Yu Yureka, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G, the Huawei Honor 4X and the Infocus M330, which certainly provides an advantage. It is a great phone for gaming and for general usage and its greatest advantage is its reasonable in an age where smart phones cost as much as or more than a laptop!